Ron’s big day starts out with a two-page ad in major papers (above). This is his Think different moment, where he puts forth the philosophy that will guide JCPenney under his leadership.
I've never been excited to shop at JC Penney before. I can't wait to see what Ron Johnson (former Senior VP of Retail at Apple) does with the chain.
I love Batman. And I grew up thinking of Microsoft as the enemy.
But you can't argue with all the amazing things Bill Gates has done and his phenomenal impact on the world.
On Twitter you can follow your favorite news, brands, and celebrities. We can get first hand insights from people we never had access to before.
But even I was surprised when I read multiple tweets from Elon Musk discussing the drop in Tesla's stock price last week after they had two executives leave.
You usually don't see a CEO being so open, especially about financial matters of the company. I found this very refreshing, and truly telling that Tesla is a different kind of company.
Sometimes, it is not super fun to run a public company. The exec departure news at Tesla was way overstated.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 14, 2012
TSLA down ~$500M Friday, but back up ~$500M today. Sorry for the roller coaster.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 17, 2012
Will communicate better in the future. Too many people want us to fail and are willing to twist any bit of news against Tesla.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 17, 2012
Our leader is Bezos.
His, and our, worldview is that consumption is a tyrannical and meaningless chore, and that life begins after you give your consumption to a third party you can trust.
When you take the $79 leap into Prime, Amazon has you for life.
Once you're in the cult you're not leaving because leaving means you have the drudgery of having to drive to the store, finding the item you want, seeing if it's in stock and then dealing with the most horrifying experience of all: retail employees.
http://www.launch.is/blog/the-cult-of-amazon-prime.html
I'm in the cult of prime, and I'm never getting out. Amazon is a company I trust to give me great service, great products, and great prices. I'll shop blindly.
One click is an addiction and I can't stop.
The only downside is the sheer amount of packaging sent to our place every week. Even though we recycle it, it doesn't feel very green.
One of the interesting conversations coming out of my last post about Product Guys is the need to cut features.
It seems like everyone in Silicon Valley likes to blog about how "a good product should cut features" when they have zero track record of actually doing so.
It's an easy thing to say. But it's really hard in practice, much harder than adding new features.
To cut a feature, you need to understand your user base deeply. You need to have metrics to back up your decision. You need to understand the impact.
You will lose some users. Some of your earliest and most loyal users may love that feature you just cut. And they will complain, loudly. They will tell the world that your company has lost its way, jumped the shark. It will hurt.
But that's why you have a good product guy. That person should understand the impact of cutting the feature. And they should have a clear reason why cutting this feature will be good for the product in the long run.
They should be able to tell the board that cutting that feature lost 1% of the user base, but tripled growth. They will have confidence in the decision.
The worst thing that can happen is to be surprised by the response of cutting that feature, and reverting the change. You will second guess yourself forever.
Adding features takes creativity. Cutting features takes balls.
You should follow me on Twitter here.
‘Liz Taylor Knows It, the President Knows It, the Bum Knows It, and You Know It.’: df4.us/iyq
— Daring Fireball (@daringfireball) January 3, 2012
[Apple] sells what’s widely held to be the best cell phone in the world starting at just $199 — reminds me of Andy Warhol’s great quote about Coke:
What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.
It doesn't matter how much money you spend, you can't get a better phone than an iPhone. And at just $199, it's accessible to almost every consumer with a cell phone. That's pretty powerful.
